When the brush strokes aren't all rosy

My first week-and-a-half here went by without many bumps.  It was hot and smelly and tiring, but nothing really seemed to jar me.  I think my two trips to Mexico (although short) took a lot of the edge off of third-world culture shock.  The traffic jams, the potholes, the poverty - none of it shook me.  It was as though my senses were processing the fact that I was in Africa, but the fact that I had left home didn't "click" in my mind.

Until last Sunday.

For the first time, the miles between me and home - all that was familiar - were no longer just a number, but a reality.  I felt small.  Alone.  Unprepared.  "What am I doing here and I'm actually half a world away from home and I'm starting French classes tomorrow and I'm totally not ready for that..."

Homesickness was never something I really experienced at the MTC, but there was no mistaking when it hit.  I missed (and still miss) my home.  My friends.  My family.  The familiar.

The week was exhausting.  Studying French tired my brain (although, up until this point, most of the material hasn't been new to me).  We went to the market and I inwardly swore off meat a hundred times.   Crowded buses passed by, people staring at my white face - which of course, is impossible to hide.  Children pressed up against the car, begging for money.  Others who were handicapped sat by the side of the road, also begging.  I felt both miserable and helpless.

I can barely say more than "Bon jour" to people I see.  I don't know how to get around on my own.  Things I was confident in doing back home are suddenly irrelevant and even some basics might need to be re-learned in this new environment.  (Shopping, for example.)

I will not try to paint the picture in all rosy hues for you - or myself - because to do so would be to leave out the other colors God may choose to use.  They may be gray.  They may be dark.  He sees the whole picture, and I do not.

Not yet.

He didn't promise His children ease or comfort or everything going the way we like.  He did promise His constant presence and His completely sufficient grace.

And He is more than just the God of might and power and knowledge.  He is the God of comfort, a safe place to run to, no matter what.

He is the same God who fed the Israelites in the middle of the desert, for forty years.  One day at a time.

He will always be enough for today.